Portland

We haven't spent much time in Portland, but we did go on Memorial Day. I don't have much to show for it. I do have Miles' favorite stop:

It's a really neat train station and Miles thought it was the coolest thing ever to be in it. It was a pretty dirty trick that we went to the train station without getting on a train. Talk about bursting a bubble. Oh well, he lived.

The weather was lovely that day and it was fun to explore and see something new. That's all.

More Beach

This wasn't the warmest day to go to the beach, but we went anyway. You've got to make hay while the sun shines, right? We are sure trying.

Whether you like it or not, this will not be the last of beach posts. Hasta lavista, baby.

A Summer to Remember

I'm always going to remember this summer. For so many reasons. Miles and I are spending lots and lots of time together. Really, it's no more than usual, but we are out and about significantly more than usual. Since we only have one car, we are Dave's ride. Just about every day we go to a park and the library. Rain or shine. Lucky for me, Miles thinks that playing in the car is equally if not more fun than anything else in the entire world, so if it is raining, that's always an option. We have picnics. We go on walks. We go shopping. Whatever we have to do to be occupied from 8-5.

Miles' favorite park so far is this old, wood one with a car and a house that I wonder how many teenagers have smoked weed in. But he loves it. Through and through.

Sitting in the car.

I love Miles' face in this picture. It's his, "you want this?" face he's making at a little girl.

There's that house...

Too cute.

We've been having so much fun exploring together. Even though we are spending the same amount of time together, it feels like so much more because of all we are doing together. My little buddy. I love walking to the library with Miles. He loves crossing the busy streets at the intersection-- pushing the cross-the-street button, watching for the walking man and the red hand and cars. And my favorite is this little gallop he recently picked up. He does it most places we go and it's adorable. When we walk down the street all the people in their cars look at Miles and smile like he's a little ball of sunshine galloping down the street. Which he is. Hooray for summer. Hooray for being in Oregon.

Miles experiences the ocean

Disclaimer: Way too many pictures and nude Miles.

Can I just say that we have been having such a great time out here in Oregon? We are in Salem which is about 50 minutes from both the beach and Portland. We've been to the coast every weekend and are just soaking it in and trying to have as much fun as possible. So, get ready for a lot of beach pictures. Way too many, to be exact.

All the following pictures are from our first time out to the coast. It wasn't terribly warm that day and we weren't really planning on beachin' it up. I don't really know what we were planning; we were just anxious to get out there and check it out. And then we saw the big, wide, beautiful ocean and couldn't resist.

Miles loved it from the start:

This here picture marks where the fun and games and enjoyment turned into a new experience. Allow me to share with you the story: "Miles Experiences the Ocean."

Miles was totally digging the water and running from the wave coming in. Miles running on the flat sand is the cutest thing I've ever seen. His little fat, flat feet and his athletic run make it irresistible. Dave and Miles went in the water with excitement and joy getting ready to run away from the wave. Dave was going to take a video so he sent Miles off to run his little heart out. I was not in the water, taking some pictures, looked down at my camera for a second, looked back up and Miles was on his belly in the water. They just went a bit too far and the water knocked our little athlete right on his face. Here's what I got of the story via pictures and I just couldn't leave any out:

Poor Miles! He was amazingly brave and didn't cry. You can see on his face in the pictures that he wanted to, but he didn't. Can you imagine being Miles? "I'm running, this is so fun, la de da... WHAT THE???" Oregon coast water is not warm, by the way. Miles was sitting by me and saw these pictures and he said, "OOO! It's cold!" What a way to be introduced to salt water. Or water in general....

The aftermath:

Since nothing bad happened and Miles was so brave, it was kind of one of those sad but funny things. I mean, the kid did a face plant. Sad. But funny. Definitely a memory I'll not forget. Especially because I have 30 thousand pictures of it.

The nudity:

Like I said, we weren't really planning on beachin' it up and we certainly weren't planning on Miles getting wet from head to toe. We didn't even have a towel!

So we let Miles play naked in the sand for a bit, allowing him to get sand everywhere, buttcrack included. That was a doozy to clean up, but we managed.

Thankfully, we had this fleece blanket in our trunk which actually worked quite nicely to get all the sand off.

There he is, standing triumphant and happy after a traumatizing experience that he handled like a champ. This is what Miles wore after we got him all cleaned up. I had a change of pants for him, but no shirt so he wore my fleece and we went to nearby outlets and bought him a new shirt. I think he preferred my fleece. That, my friends, is how Miles experienced the ocean.